JP2003158522A - Discovery and management of network printers - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and a management device that can efficiently initialize a network device and perform network settings and operation management. SOLUTION: Managing a plurality of network devices on a network, including detecting an address assignment message sent from an address server over the network to a network device, the address assignment message containing an assigned address corresponding to the network device, sending an information request message, in response to the detection of the address assignment message, over the network from the network management device to the network device, the information request message containing the assigned address corresponding to the network device, receiving information, in response to the information request message, from the network device, and creating an entry corresponding to the network device in a device management directory, the entry containing the assigned address corresponding to the network device and the information received from the network device.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a network appliance for automatically detecting and automatically managing connected network devices. In particular, the present invention detects a network device by listening for an IP address request from the network device and then using the IP address provided to the network device to obtain the configuration information and capabilities of the network device. ..
Network equipment provides a common focus for network administrators to configure and manage all network devices detected by the network equipment.

[0002]

[Reference] Application filed on September 18, 2000, name "Object
‐Based Architecture For Supporting Network Device
The contents of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 664,531 are incorporated herein by reference.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art Managing network devices such as network printers in a network environment is usually a tedious and time consuming task for network managers. Especially, in a large and complicated network environment having some local servers, it is considered that many printers are distributed throughout the network. Many printers are physically far away from where the network administrator is. In the conventional network environment, the network administrator has to go to the printer installation place to set up a network including the printer name and unique IP address every time a new printer is installed in the network. did not become.

The network administrator may also need to set up a corresponding print queue at the printer's print server. The print server may be managed by the local server, or may be managed by another server located far away from the printer. It will be appreciated that large, complex networks may have multiple print servers to accommodate all printers on the network. The print queue is set up by the network administrator by entering network configuration information and information about the printer, such as the printer name, printer functionality and capabilities, and information about the printer driver associated with the printer.
Further, the network administrator could set up a print queue based on additional information about which network users are allowed access to the printer and what type of print job can be submitted to the printer. Therefore, the network administrator must publish the new print queue in preparation for access by the appropriate network user. Therefore, when installing a new printer, the network administrator would have to work at the location of the printer and at the location of the print server where the new corresponding print queue is hosted. In such an environment, the print queues of every printer on the network will be distributed among several different servers.

In addition to installing a new printer on the network, the network administrator must follow a similar process each time the network printer is reconfigured. For example, you can move the printer to another location, give the printer a different name for use by different groups of network users, add new features to the printer, or change the printer's network settings. There is a case. In any case, the network administrator must ensure that the print queue corresponding to the network server has changed to reflect such changes. in addition,
Some of the above changes require notification to the appropriate user station to change the corresponding printer settings at the user workstation.

In a large enterprise, such as a large, physically distributed company with a large number of printers installed, the above system management tasks associated with network printers can be overwhelming. . In addition to the network management tasks associated with the printer, other network problems can occur with the printer. For example, many printers on a network generate very large amounts of network traffic between the print server and the printer. Further, when a network management tool that continuously polls for the presence or absence of a printer and acquires setting information and function information from the printer is used, network traffic occurs even during network management of the printer. Such large amounts of network traffic can impair other communications between workstations, servers and other network devices. Further, since many printers in a network environment consume many corresponding IP addresses, the total number of IP addresses available on the network for other devices will be limited.

Another consideration in conventional network environments is the issue of user policy and confidentiality. For example,
A network user can see at the user's workstation whether or not there is a printer, but may not have permission to access the printer queue associated with that printer. Such a user would use the printer's IP address to send the rendered print job directly to the printer without going through the print queue. Such actions would be a violation of user policy and could lead to a confidential disclosure if a confidential document was printed on a printer in an unsecured location.

Network management tools such as management software and stand-alone devices have been developed in an attempt to make network management of printers more efficient for network managers. However, such network management tools have often required that network printers be provided with special software to simulate plug-and-play functionality for printer detection and configuration. For example, a network printer will require specialized software to initiate a discovery process and publish information about the printer itself to the network. In addition, many such network management tools frequently send broadcast or status messages to all printers on the network to detect new printers and / or monitor changes to existing printers. Request issuance.
As mentioned above, this increase in network traffic is undesirable and can cause network congestion. When multiple network management tools are used to handle all printers in a distributed fashion in a large network environment, the network administrator has a single focus for efficient management of all printers. Absent. Finally, known network management tools are not considered extensible to provide additional printer support features as required according to the particular network environment.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention addresses the above problems by providing a management tool for efficiently managing multiple network devices, such as network printers, copiers and other devices on a network. In particular, according to the present invention, the presence or absence of a new network device on the network is automatically detected each time, so that the initial network settings of the network device are automatically managed. When a new network device is detected, discovery is performed to obtain the setting information and the function information regarding the detected network device. Upon completion of that discovery, the present invention enables functional support of network devices such as creation and management of print queues corresponding to printing devices, as well as other functional support for network devices. In addition, the network management device of the present invention can connect a plurality of network devices to the network management device via the local network. On the other hand, since only the network management device is connected to the main network, the network device is isolated from all other devices on the main network, and the other devices on the main network function services of multiple network devices. And in order to access the function, it has to go through the network management device. Finally, the network management device of the present invention implements a user interface support for network management of the network management device and any network device to be managed by all other network management devices on the main network.

Therefore, in one aspect of the present invention, detecting an address assignment message transmitted from an address server to a network device via a network and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device, and detecting the address assignment message. In response to
Transmitting an information request message including an assigned address corresponding to the network device from the network management device to the network device via the network, receiving information from the network device in response to the information request message, and a device management directory And managing multiple network devices on the network, including creating an entry corresponding to the network device and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device and information received from the network device.

The network device is preferably a network printer, but other network devices are also supported by the present invention. Further, the network management device utilizes the initial DHCP address request from the network device to initiate the discovery of the network device. Further, a given MAC address range can be utilized to limit the network devices processed for discovery according to the present invention. In this way, the network administrator can limit the invention to finding only certain types of network devices. It is also preferred in the present invention that a plurality of such network management devices be distributed in the network in order to detect and manage all network devices across a large and complex network. In such an embodiment, a plurality of network devices managed by each network management device are connected to the corresponding network management device by a local network and are connected to all other servers, workstations and other devices on the main network. Is preferably invisible. In addition, in an environment with multiple network management devices, the detection and management of all network devices on the network should be avoided to avoid unnecessary redundancy and network confusion, and to the resource availability and location of each network management device. On the basis of this, in order to balance the functional support of all network devices among a plurality of network management devices, the plurality of network management devices are executed in cooperation with each other.

According to another aspect of the invention, an address request message including a MAC address corresponding to one network printer of a plurality of network printers is received from the network printer.
The present invention relates to managing a plurality of network printers on a network by a network management device. An address assignment message including a MAC address and an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer is transmitted from the address server of the network management device to the network printer via the network, and the IP address assigned to the network printer is sent to the discovery module of the network management device. Will be notified. The discovery module determines whether the MAC address of the network printer is within a predetermined MAC address range. When the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined MAC address range, the discovery module sends an information request message including the assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer to the network printer via the network. If the MAC address of the network printer is M
If it is in the AC address range, information from the network printer is received in response to the information request message. If the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined MAC address range, the assignment I corresponding to the network printer in the device management directory and corresponding to the MAC address and the network printer
An entry is created that contains the P address and contains the information received from the network printer.

The address request message is preferably a DHCP address request. According to the invention, it is also preferable to distribute a plurality of such network management devices in a large and complex network so that all network printers can be detected and managed throughout the network. In such an embodiment, the network printers managed by each network management device are connected by a local network to the corresponding network management device, and all other servers, workstations and other devices on the main network are It is preferably invisible. In addition, in an environment including multiple network management devices, unnecessary redundancy and network confusion are avoided, and based on the resource availability and installation location of each network management device, all network management devices are not In order to balance the functional support of the network printers, the detection and management of all the network printers on the network are performed in cooperation with a plurality of network management devices.

With the above-described configuration, the initial settings and network settings of the network devices in the network are automatically managed, thereby significantly reducing the labor required by the network administrator. It becomes possible to efficiently manage a large number of network devices such as other devices. Further, by utilizing the present invention, multiple network devices can be physically isolated from the main network, eliminating unwanted network traffic associated with the network devices from the main network, while allowing network users to manage the associated network. You will not be able to access or use the network device without going through the device, thereby
Security and network policy issues are prevented. Also, multiple network management devices can be used to manage all network devices throughout the network to provide a single focal point user interface to the network administrator for the purpose of managing all network devices. Finally, since the use of the present invention isolates the network device from the main network,
The network device can use the local IP address corresponding to each network management device on the local network, thereby saving valuable IP address to be used by other devices in the main network.

The present invention can be summarized as described above in order to easily understand the characteristics of the present invention. Furthermore, the invention will be more fully understood by reference to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

[0016]

1 shows a network environment in which the present invention can be implemented. As is apparent from FIG. 1, a network 10 is provided, which is a typical network supported by TCP / IP and other protocols discussed in detail below. The network 10 includes workstations 11 and 12, a server 14, printers 15, 16, 17 and 18, and a laptop 19.
And the network management device 20 are connected. The network management device 20 includes network printers 15 and 1
Used to implement the present invention to manage multiple network devices such as 6, 17 and 18. The settings and functions of the network management device 20 will be described in more detail below. In this regard, although the present invention is described below with respect to managing network printers, it should be understood that the network management device 20 of the present invention can be used to manage any type of network device.

The workstations 11 and 12 can be used by a user of either one of the workstations 11 or 12 to work with a typical application such as document creation processing, and can be provided by another device on the network 10 such as a print service. 1 is a typical computing workstation having a host processor 26 that supports a user interface 29 to provide access to the functional services provided.

Server 14 is a typical server having a host processor 30 that includes a large fixed disk containing files and / or applications that can be accessed and shared by other users on network 10. The server 14 further comprises a display device 31 supporting a user interface 32. Laptop 19
It is a typical laptop computer having a host processor and a display device so that it can operate similarly to the workstations 11 and 12.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining the internal structure of the network management device 20. As can be seen in FIG. 2, the network management device 20 has a configuration similar to a server, and includes a server bus 40, a CPU 41, and a RAM.
42, ROM 47, and network interface 4
4 and 45, a front panel interface 46,
A fixed disk 50. CPU41
Is a programmable microprocessor that interfaces to the server bus 40. RAM 42 is the server bus 4
0, the CPU 41 can access the stored contents. That is, the RAM 42 operates as the main runtime memory of the CPU 41. In particular, when executing a stored program instruction sequence, the CPU 41
Loads the instruction sequences from fixed disk 50 (or other storage medium) into RAM 42, reads those stored program instruction sequences from RAM 42 and executes them. It also uses standard disk swapping techniques to route multiple segments of memory to RAM 42 and fixed disk 5.
It should also be understood that you can swap to zero.

The ROM 47 stores a constant instruction sequence such as a start-up instruction sequence of the CPU 41 or a basic input / output operating system ("BIOS") sequence for the operation of some peripheral device that can be installed in the server 11 (not shown). .. Since the network interfaces 44 and 45 are two completely separate network interfaces, the network management device 20 can be connected to two separate networks as will be explained further below. As can be seen in FIG. 2, the network interfaces 44 and 45 are respectively connected to the network 10
Network 10 of network management device 20 via
It has corresponding protocols 48 and 49 to support communication with other devices above. For example, protocol 4
8 and 49 are TCP / IP, HTTP, SNMP, DH
CP, and other well known network protocols including various well known printing protocols,
It is not limited to them.

The front panel interface 46 is a front panel 21 provided in the network management device 20.
This allows a user such as a system administrator to monitor setting information and other commands and commands and input them to the network management device 20.

The fixed disk 50 includes an operating system 51 and a front panel interface driver 5.
2, network interface driver 53, directory 54, server 55, software module 5
6, a web page 57, a print job 58, a print queue policy rule 59, a print driver 60, a print queue 61 and other files 62 of a computer readable storage medium storing a sequence of program instructions executable by the CPU 41. This is an example. The operating system 51 is an operating system such as DOS, or Windows NT
A windowing operating system for network such as (registered trademark), or Uni
It may be another operating system such as x. The front panel interface driver 52 is provided to support the front panel interface 46 for communicating with the front panel 21.
The network interface driver 53 supports the network interfaces 44 and 45 so that the network management device 20 can communicate with the two separate networks as described above. The directory 54 is
Includes a directory for use in implementing the invention to manage multiple printing devices on a network,
This point will be described later. The server 55 includes the necessary protocol servers and other servers for implementing the invention, which will be described later. Software module 56 is utilized to implement the present invention as described below. The web page 57 is accessed by a user on the network 10 as described in detail below, or by a system administrator of the network 10 to access functional services of printing devices in the network 10 and by the network management device 20 and the network management device 20. 6 is a web page that is accessible to manage settings for a plurality of managed printing devices. The print job 58 is composed of a print job to be received by the network management apparatus 20 from a user on the network 10 such as the workstations 11 and 12 and transmitted to the printing apparatus managed by the network management apparatus 20. The print queue policy rules 59 are for controlling a predetermined set of rules and / or how print queues are created and published for each printing device managed by the network management device 20, as described further below. Contains the rules entered by the system administrator. The print driver 60 is a print driver that supports various printing devices managed by the network management device 20, and the print queue 61 is
A print queue created for managing the printing device by the network management device 20. Finally, other files 62 include other files and applications necessary to implement the present invention and provide additional functionality to network management device 20.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the contents of the directory 54. Specifically, the directory 54 includes a device management directory 70, a print queue setting directory 71, and a service directory 72.
The device management directory 70 includes one or more device management directories used to store network identification / setting information for each printing device managed by the network management device 20, as described in more detail below. . The print queue setting directory 71 is a directory that includes printer identification information and printer function information together with other information for each print queue created corresponding to the printing device managed by the network management device 20. The service directory 72 includes various service directories for tracking and managing functional services supported by one or more network management devices for a plurality of printing devices supported by the network management device 20. The service directory 72 will be described in more detail below.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram for explaining the contents of the server 55. As shown in FIG. 4, the server 55 includes a DHCP server 75, a web server 76, and
It includes a print server 77 and an SNMP agent 78. The DHCP server 75 is the network management device 2
0 causes an IP address to be assigned to a plurality of printing devices it manages as well as other devices on the network 10. The DHCP server 75 also has a function of providing a software hook with which other modules can register. Therefore, the DHCP server 75 assigns an IP address to one printing device on the network 10,
After that, when the address confirmation message is received from the printing device, the DHCP server 75 notifies the registered software module of the IP address of the printing device via the software hook. This is used to trigger the discovery module to perform a later targeted discovery of the printing device, as described in more detail below. Alternatively, when an external DHCP server is used in the network 10, the network management device 20 can be set to disable the DHCP server 75. This function will be described in more detail below. The web server 76 is a typical web server, and is the network management device 20.
Used to publish web pages managed by the workstation to workstations 11 and 12 on network 10 or other entities such as server 14. The print server 77 is the network management device 20.
A print server for managing print queues for one or more printing devices managed by. Finally, the SNMP agent 78 causes the network management device 20 to communicate with other network devices, such as a printing device, via the network 10 to send and receive network configuration information and other information related to the printing device. The SNMP agent 78 preferably initiates SNMP communications between the network management device 20 and other network devices that may include an SNMP agent for responding to SNMP communications.

FIG. 5 shows the DHCP listening module 8
0, a virtual device module 81, a function application module 82, a print queue service module 83, a discovery module 84, a print queue service manager module 85, and a discovery service manager module 87. It is a block diagram for doing. The DHCP listening module 80
It is a module that can be used when an external DHCP server used outside the network management device 20 is used instead of the DHCP server 75. With such a setting, the DHCP listening module 80 detects the printing device on the network 10 based on the assignment of the IP address to the printing device by the external DHCP server.
Can be used. This DHCP listening module 80
The function of will be described in more detail below.

The virtual device module 81 comprises one or more virtual device modules that can be started corresponding to one or more printing devices supported by the network management device 20 to extend the functionality of the printing device. For example, a virtual device module could be implemented to provide confidential printing functionality for a printing device that is managed by the network management device 20 and has no embedded confidential printing functionality. It should be understood that such additional functionality can be implemented in software without the use of virtual device modules.

The function application module 82 is
It is a module for executing various applications such as network confidential printing, and is a virtual module for realizing a functional service such as confidential printing that is not directly supported by one or more printing devices managed by the network management device 20. Interconnects with device module 81. Functional application modules are described in further detail below. The print queue service module 83 interfaces with the discovery module 84 to create a new print queue when a new printing device is discovered.

The discovery module 84 is a module used to perform discovery on printing devices detected on the network 10 so as to obtain information about the network settings and functions of the printing devices. In accordance with the operation mode of the network management device 20, the discovery module 84 uses the DHCP server 75.
, From conventional discovery methods and / or DHCP
Detected printing device notifications may be received from the listening module 80 via a software hook. The functionality of the discovery module 84 and print queue service module 83 will be described in further detail below.

The print queue service manager module 85 enables a plurality of network management devices on the same network to avoid confusion regarding the detection and discovery of printing devices in the network, and the available resources of each network management device. A management application that allows a plurality of network management devices to distribute and share a processing load that supports various printing devices throughout the network based on the location of each network management device in the network. The print queue service manager module 85 is described in further detail below. Similarly, the discovery service manager module 87
Manages a discovery module among multiple network management devices to prevent confusion in printing device discovery, discovery and management. The discovery service manager module 87 also has a function of distributing a load for performing discovery of printing devices in a predetermined network among a plurality of network management devices. This function will also be described in detail below.

Referring to FIG. 6, a network configuration web page 86, a queue service web page 88,
A web page 57 is shown that includes a print queue web page 89. Network settings web page 8
By using 6, the user, especially the system administrator, can get a web-based interface for managing the configuration and operating parameters of the network management device 20 or a plurality of network management devices in one place. Further, a user such as a system administrator can set and manage printing devices managed by the network management device 20 through the network settings web page 86. By using the queue service web page 88, a user such as a system administrator can access the network management device 20 and the network 1.
0, it is possible to access and manage print queues associated with all printing devices managed by other network management devices. Accordingly, the queue service web page 88 allows the system administrator to visually view and manage all print queues supported by the network management device 20 and other network management devices, and print in each print queue. You can see and manage jobs visually. The print queue web page 89 provides network management so that the user can quickly and efficiently find the required print queue and also download the print driver corresponding to the print device associated with the specified print queue. Accessible by users of network 10, such as workstations 11 and 12, to publish in one place all available print queues managed by device 20 and other network management devices on network 10. It is a web page.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram for explaining one of the device management directories 80. As is apparent from FIG. 7, the device management directory is used to contain identification information and network configuration information for each printing device detected and located by the present invention. In particular, the device management directory 70 includes a plurality of entries 90 each corresponding to one particular printing device detected and located by the network management device 20. Based on the information found by the network management device 20 from the corresponding device, an individual entry for the printing device is created, and the identification information related to the printing device is stored in the entry together with the network setting information of the printing device. . For example, each entry 90 has a field for entering the MAC address 91 of the corresponding printing device. In addition, each entry has a corresponding printing device type 92 and IP address 93 of the printing device associated with that entry. Finally, the network setting information 94 is
Contains network-related information associated with the printing device for the corresponding entry, such as domain name and other network configuration information. As described above, a directory is defined to manage the identification information and the network setting information for each printing device managed by the network management device 20 so that the network user such as the system administrator can efficiently access and manage the network user. ing.
When there are two or more network management devices in the network 10, one common one for managing the identity information and the network setting information for all the printing devices managed by all the network management devices on the network. Another device management directory is created to provide a place to do this. This function will be described in more detail below.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram for explaining the print queue setting directory 71. In particular, the print queue settings directory 71 contains a plurality of entries corresponding to each print queue created by the present invention for each printing device that is detected and located. When a print queue is created for a printing device, in order to manage all the print queue setting information in one common place, the setting information related to the print queue is stored in one entry of the print queue setting directory 71. It As is clear from FIG. 8, each entry in the print queue setting directory 71 corresponds to a separate print queue, and includes an IP address 100, a MAC address 101, a print queue name 102, and a print function 10.
3 and server 105 fields. The IP address 100 contains the IP address of the printing device corresponding to the print queue entry, and the MAC address 101 likewise corresponds to the MAC address of the printing device. The print queue name 102 is the name detected by the discovery from the corresponding printing device. If the name is not found, it is generated when the print queue is created. For example, the print queue name 102 may simply include a name that is the manufacturer and model of the printing device found by the network management device 20 from the printing device. Similarly, print capabilities 103 include printing capabilities of printing devices associated with print queue entries. For example, the print function 103 may be a color print function, letter size and / or A
Recording sheet size functions such as 4 and functions related to resolution can be included, but are not limited to. The server 105 is the identity of the network management device that manages the print queue for a given printing device. For example, in a network environment having a plurality of network management devices, in order to balance the processing throughput and the memory load required to manage the print queues, different print queues may be used among the plurality of network management devices. It is considered to be distributed.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram for explaining the functionality of the network management device 20 in the network environment of the network 10. As is apparent from FIG. 9, the DHCP server 75 is provided in the network management device 20 in order to support the DHCP communication via the network 10 using the DHCP protocol. In particular, the DHCP server 75 can be enabled via the front panel 21 by a system administrator or the like to respond to all DHCP address requests on the network 10 for IP addresses. In this setting, the DHCP server 75 supports the software hook registered in advance by the discovery module 84. The DHCP server 75 is the network 10
When a DHCP address request is received from the above device, DH
The CP server 75 responds to the requesting device with the assigned IP address. When the DHCP server 75 receives the address confirmation message from the requesting device, the DHCP server 75 uses a software hook to discover the IP address assigned to the requesting device by the discovery module 84.
To notify. Therefore, the discovery module 84
The requesting device can determine whether the discovery module 84 is the type of network device for which discovery should be performed, and if the answer is affirmative, the discovery module 84 determines the device's network settings, as well as the device's capabilities and settings. To obtain information about the discovery module 84 sends a discovery request message. A predetermined MAC address range can be used by the discovery module 84 to determine whether the device detected by the DHCP server 75 is the device for which the discovery module 84 should perform discovery. In addition, the DHCP server 75 only assigns to preferred network devices such as network printers.
A predetermined MAC address range may be used by the DHCP server 75 to provide the P address. The discovery module 84 uses M of the address confirmation message.
Compare the AC address to a given MAC address range,
It is preferable to determine if the device is a network printer that should be located and managed by the network management device 20.

Alternatively, the network management device 20 may be connected to the DHC via the front panel 21 or the network setting web page 86 by a system administrator or the like.
It is also possible to set the P server 75 to be disabled. For example, if an external DHCP module is used, the DHCP server 75 is disabled to prevent addressing conflicts and the discovery module 84 performs conventional discovery to find all printing devices on the network 10. Find out. Such conventional printing device discovery can include well-known techniques such as using broadcast discovery messages, pinging a list of IP addresses, router table walking and DNS lookups. Not limited. For example, SN
When an MP broadcast discovery message is sent,
The discovery module 84 can send a target SNMP discovery request to each responding printing device.
Alternatively, the discovery module pings the list of IP addresses and sends the target SNM to each responding printing device.
A P-Discovery request can be sent. As another alternative, the discovery module 84 may obtain router tables from routers on the network and send an SNMP discovery request to each printing device that has an IP address in those router tables. Finally, the discovery module 84 can obtain a list of assigned IP addresses from the DNS server on the network and send an SNMP discovery request to each printing device with an IP address in the list. It is understood that other known discovery methods may be used by the discovery module 84 to locate printing devices on the network 10 if an external DHCP server is used instead of the DHCP server 75 of the network management device 20. it can.

In addition to the conventional discovery method, DHC
The P listening module 80 can also be used to detect an IP address confirmation message for a new requesting printing device on the network 10. In particular, the DHCP listening module 80 detects a DHCP address confirmation message containing the IP address of the new printing device on the network 10. For example, after boot-up of the network management device 20 in a setting where an external DHCP server is utilized, the discovery module 84 uses the conventional discovery method as described above to find the printing device present in the network 10. .

After using such conventional discovery, the DHCP listening module 80 is used to
By detecting the IP address confirmation message transmitted from the HCP server to the external DHCP server via the newly incorporated printing device, it is possible to detect the printing device that will be activated later on the network 10. Thus, the DHCP listening module 80 can be used to extend conventional discovery to supplement the list of printing devices found after the initial bootup of the network management device 20. Also, DH
The CP listening module 80 informs the discovery module 84 when a newly installed printing device is detected, in order to notify the discovery module 84.
It also uses the software hook that 4 registered in advance. The discovery module 84 then initiates a discovery process to obtain information from the newly installed printing device, as described in more detail below. The DHCP listening module 80 may also use the MAC address range to listen only to IP address confirmation messages that correspond to a particular class of network devices, such as network printers.

As mentioned above, when external DHCP is used, the discovery module 84 uses conventional discovery methods to locate printing devices on the network 10 and then uses the DHCP listening module 80. The printing device to be installed after that can be found. On the other hand, when the DHCP server 75 is used, the DHCP server 75 of the printing device detected via the software hook sends a notification to the discovery module 84. Regardless of how discovery module 84 recognizes a detected printing device, discovery module 84 initiates discovery of information from the printing device. The discovery module 84 uses the IP address of the detected printing device to send an SNM to the detected printing device.
It is preferable to send a P information request. The detected printing device then responds with an SNMP information message to provide the requested information to the discovery module 84. The discovery module 84 creates one entry for each found printing device in the device management directory 70. As described above, the entry corresponding to each discovery device in the device management directory 70 includes the IP address corresponding to the printer 18, the MAC address, the printing device type, and the network setting information. In addition, the discovery module 84 creates a new print queue for the printing device found by the print queue service module 83 and inserts the new print queue into the print queue 61. Notify the print queue service module 83. In the print queue setting directory 71, the print queue service module 83 also creates an entry including printer identification information such as an IP address, a MAC address, a printing device type, a print queue name, and a printing device function. In this way, the network settings of the printing device are easily managed, and print queues are efficiently created and managed for the detected printing devices.

The block diagram of FIG. 9 shows that the network management device 20 is using only one of the network interfaces 44 and 45 to connect to the network 10, but only the printing device resides locally. The network management device 20 also supports settings in which one of the network interfaces is used to connect to another network such as a network. In such an environment, DHCP server 75 may be configured to respond only to IP address requests from printing devices on the second local network, which causes DHCP server 34 of server 14 to network 10. Will respond to all other IP address requests. In this way, the network management device 2
In order to prevent unauthorized use and supervised use of a printing device connected to the second local network via 0, the printing device may be physically isolated from all other network devices of the network 10. It will be possible.

As also apparent from FIG. 9, the web server 76 presents a web page as described with respect to FIG. 6 to a user at the location of the workstation 12 or a network user such as a network administrator at the location of the server 14. It will be made public via the network. Finally, the functional application module 82 provides network-wide functionality for printing devices managed by the network management device 20 and is a virtual support for such network applications for printing devices managed by the network management device 20. It can interface with the device container 81. For example, the functional application module 82 may include a confidential printing application that allows a user of the network 10 to confidentially provide a print job to a printing device managed by the network management device 20. Even if the printing device does not have the embedded functionality for supporting confidential printing, the virtual device container 81 operates to support such confidential printing functionality for each corresponding printing device. As described above, the network management device 20 is an expandable management tool for efficiently managing the printing devices on the network so that the additional function can be added according to the request of the specific network.

Further, the network management device 20 is configured to reconfigure the network device, such as a network printer, so as to reconfigure the network device in order to operate efficiently under the control of the network management device 20. Can be controlled. For example, if the network printer is connected to the network management device 20 via the local network, the network management device 20 can use the SNMP message to reconfigure the network printer. Reconfiguring such a network printer will cause the network printer to stop supporting some protocols,
It may include, but is not limited to, instructions for causing only the protocol that the network management device 20 is using to communicate with its network printer.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram for explaining the contents of the functional application module 82. As described above, the function application module 82 is used in association with the virtual device module 81 to support additional functions of the printing device managed by the network management device 20. In this way, a printing device that does not support a new network application such as confidential printing will appear to other devices on the network as if it supports the new application. With reference to FIG. 10, the functional application module 82 includes the network management device 20.
Print jobs that are directed to printing devices managed by and can be classified by network users,
It includes a print job billing application module 110 that manages billing information associated with print jobs and exports information for use by print job billing clients.

The function application module 82 is
It further includes a print job policy management application module 111 that can be used to control access to each printing device managed by the network management device 20 and control authorized functionality. This control is preferably modifiable by settings provided by the system administrator. The printing device management application module 112 allows a user such as a system administrator to set network settings for the network management device 20 and a printing device managed by the network management device 20, such as a printing device having an entry in the device management directory 70. Used to provide and support a user interface, such as a user interface at workstations 11 and 12 or server 14 for accessing and managing. The printing device driver utility 114 manages an appropriate print driver for each printing device managed by the network management device 20. Network users can access the print queue web page 89.
Preferably, the print driver can be accessed and downloaded from the printing device driver utility 114, such as by using. In addition, the printing device driver utility 114 preferably obtains the appropriate print driver via the Internet, such as from the manufacturer's web page for the corresponding printing device. For example, printing device driver utility 114 may use a separate general purpose internet download module to obtain such a print driver. The confidential print job application module 115 is a module for supporting confidential submission of a print job for a printing device managed by the network management device 20 and permitting the confidential printing of the print job to the printing device.

Referring to FIG. 11, it can be seen that the service directory 72 includes a local service directory 120 and a global service directory 121. Generally, the service directory 72 is useful in a network environment where there are many network devices such as network printers to be managed. In such an environment, it is preferable to have multiple network management devices deployed throughout the network enterprise. The plurality of network management devices preferably operate in a coordinated manner with respect to fault tolerance and load sharing so as to determine which network management device supports a particular functional service. For example, IP
In order to avoid confusion regarding allocation of addresses and the like, only one network management device among a plurality of network management devices in a given subnet should be responsible for detecting and locating the network device in that subnet. . Further, from the viewpoint of balancing the load, it is desirable that one or more of the other network management devices execute other functional services of the printing devices on the subnet, such as creation and management of print queues. . Therefore, for each network management device and the functional services that they perform, use the service directory to find out which network management device in the plurality of network management devices manages and executes a particular functional service. Is preferred.

In general, the local service directory 1
20 contains one entry for each functional service managed by one particular network management device of a subnet. An example of such a local feature service is the discovery service for that subnet. The global service directory 121 contains one entry for each functional service that is global in nature. For example, the global service directory 121 can recognize the existence of each network management device, and can acquire information of all network devices managed by all the network management devices in the network, and all the global information services in the entire network. It includes an entry regarding a load balancing service for balancing services among network management devices.

As is apparent from FIG. 11, both the local service directory 120 and the global service directory 121 have similar formats, but other formats are possible. The format is composed of a plurality of entries organized by the fields of the subnet ID 122, the service 124, and the network management device ID 125. The local services directory 120 supports identification of services supported by one or more network management devices on a particular network segment, such as a subnet. It should be appreciated that FIG. 11 represents only one example of the format of the service directory 72, other formats are possible. For example, the subnet ID may include the real subnet address and mask instead of the representative number. Furthermore, the identifier of the service field may be a universally unique identifier for uniquely identifying each specific service, instead of using the general description. Finally, nmd id for each network management device
May be the real address of the network management device.

As is apparent from FIG. 11, the local service directory 120 corresponds to the network segment named subnet 1, as reflected by the subnet value. Further, the entry of the local service directory 120 is that the discovery service of the subnet 1 is provided by the network management device having the nmd id which is 1, and the subnet 1
Of the print queue service is instructed to be provided by the network management device 20 having the nmd id of 2. In this way, the two network management devices in subnet 1 share the responsibility of providing the necessary services to the printing devices in that subnet.

Similarly, it can be seen that the global service directory 121 directs globally supported services and respective network management devices that provide such services. The global service directory 121 determines services that are accessible to all network management devices across all network segments (subnets) of a large and complex network. For example, it can be seen that the print queue for subnet 1 is run by nmd1, the discovery service manager resides on nmd3, and the global information service resides on nmd1. As described above, the services provided by the plurality of network management devices in the large-scale network environment are divided into the local level and the global level and are announced. The use and function of the local service directory 120 and the global service directory 121 will be described in the following description of a network environment with multiple network management devices.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an extended version of the Global Services Directory, which is similar to the version shown in FIG. 11 except for a few points. First, the global service directory 121 of FIG. 12 describes additional services for each subnet. As apparent from FIG. 12, the global service directory 121 further includes an entry for indicating that the master device of the subnet 1 is the network management device 1 with respect to the subnet 1. Further, the discovery service manager is provided with an entry for instructing that it is managed by the network management device 3. Further, an entry for instructing that the global information service is managed by the network management device 1 is also provided. Finally, the print queue service manager is provided with an entry indicating that it is supported by the network management device 3. In this way, all global functions are easily accessed.

In FIG. 13A, the network management device 20 uses the internal DHCP server 75 to
6 is a flowchart for explaining a process of detecting a printing device on the network 10 when it is set to allocate an IP address above. Step S1
At 301, the process for detecting a printing device on the network 10 begins. In step S1302, it is determined whether the discovery module 84 has started. If so, the flow proceeds to step S1303, where the internal DHCP server 75 discovers via the software hook a list of printing devices to which the DHCP server has already assigned an IP address since the network management device 20 booted up. Send to module 84. Thus, the discovery module 84
DH at an early stage after the start of the network management device 20.
The printing device that seems to have acquired the IP address from the CP server 75 will not be missed. Then the flow proceeds to step S1304. If no discovery module 84 startup has occurred, flow proceeds to step S1304.
Proceeding to, one printing device on the network 10 asks for an IP address and sends a DHCP discover request message containing the MAC address of the requesting printing device. Since the internal DHCP server 75 is an active DHCP server on the network 10, the DHCP containing the IP address is used.
It responds to the request by sending a P address assignment message to the requesting printing device (step S13).
05). Then, the printing device requests D to request registration of the received IP address for the printing device.
The DHCP address request message is transmitted to the DHCP server 75, and then the DHCP server 75 responds with an IP address confirmation message for the printing device (step S1306). In step S1307, DHCP
The server 75 calls the software hook previously registered by the discovery module 84 in order to notify the discovery module 84 of the printing device that has confirmed the assigned IP address. MAC address and assigned IP
Address via hook hook for discovery module 84
Provided to. Then the flow continues to step S1308 and returns. In this way, the internal DHCP server 75
The HCP server 75 is the only DHC on the network 10.
It is used to inform the discovery module 84 of the printing devices detected on the network 10 when operating as a P server.

FIG. 13B shows a printing device on network 10 when network management device 20 is configured to disable internal DHCP server 75 and an external DHCP server is used to assign an IP address on network 10. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a process of detecting the. In this mode, it is not possible to use the DHCP server 75 to inform the discovery module 84 of the printing devices detected on the network 10, as the DHCP server 75 is inactive. Therefore, as described above with respect to FIG. 9, the conventional discovery mechanism is used to perform the initial discovery of printing devices residing on the network 10, and then the DHCP listening module 80 is used to After that, the printing device incorporated in the network 10 is efficiently detected. In step S1310, the process starts by detecting a printing device on the network 10. Step S
At 1311, it is determined whether the discovery module 84 has started. If so, flow proceeds to step S1312, where discovery module 8
4 uses conventional discovery mechanisms such as broadcast, pinging, router table walking and DNS lookup as described above with respect to FIG.
Regardless of what discovery mechanism is used, the discovery module 84
A response confirming the existence and identity of each printing device is received from the above printing devices (step S1313),
Thereafter, the flow proceeds to step S1314. Thus, when the network management device 20 boots up, the conventional discovery mechanism is used to detect the printing device on the network 10 that has already acquired the IP address from the external DHCP server. In step S1311,
If it is determined that the startup of the discovery module 84 has not started yet, the flow proceeds to step S1314.
Go to.

After detecting all the existing printing devices on the network 10 using the conventional discovery mechanism, the DHCP listening module 80 is used to efficiently detect the printing devices to be incorporated in the network 10 thereafter. be able to. The DHCP listening module 80 sniffs traffic on the network 10 for a DHCP address confirmation message indicating that a device has received an IP address.
fing) to detect such a printing device. In step S1314, a printing device newly incorporated into the network 10, such as a printing device that has just been online, seeks an IP address and sends a DHCP address discover message containing the MAC address of the requesting printing device. In step S1315, the external DHCP server uses DHCP including the IP address.
Send an address assignment message to the requesting printing device. Therefore, the requesting printing device sends a DHCP request message to the external DHCP server in order to request registration of the assigned IP address of the printing device, and then the external DHCP server sends a DHCP address confirmation message to the printing device. (Step S1316). DHCP
The listening module 80 detects the presence of the DHCP address confirmation message on the network 10 in step S1317. The DHCP listening module then notifies the discovery module 84 of the printing device corresponding to the detected DHCP address confirmation message using a software hook similar to the software hook previously described with respect to the DHCP server 75 (step S1318). . Hook is discovery module 8
It is preferable to provide the detected MAC address and IP address of the printing device. In addition, the discovery module 84 uses DH to use software hooks.
It is preferable to register the CP listening module 80 in advance. Thereafter, the flow proceeds to step S1319 and returns.

FIG. 13C shows the case after the printing device is detected, regardless of whether the internal DHCP server or the external DHCP server is used to assign the IP address to the device on the network 10. The function of the network management device 20 is shown. In the example shown in FIG. 13C, in order to make the network management device 20 and the printing device on the network 10 communicate with each other so as to execute the discovery,
SNMP is used. It should be appreciated that other well-known protocols and mechanisms can be used to obtain information about network settings, settings and capabilities of each printing device. In step S1320, the discovery module 84 transmits an SNMP information request message to the printing device such as the printer 18 via the network 10 in response to the IP address included in the detected DHCP IP address allocation message (step S1320). Next, in step S1321, the discovery module 84 receives the SNMP information response message from the printer 18 (printing device detected in this example) in response to the SNMP information request message. The SNMP information response message is the MAC address, I
It includes information corresponding to the printer 18, such as P-address, printing device type and other network configuration information.

In step S1322, the discovery module 84 detects the printer 18 which is the detected printing device.
For the device management directory 70, one entry is created. This entry includes the MAC address, IP address, printing device type and other network configuration information received from the printer 18 in the SNMP information response message. In this way, the printing device on the network 10 is detected and located by the network management device 20 based on the conventional IP address request issued by the network device at the time of initial setting. Therefore, no special software or hardware is required on the printing device side to support the automatic detection and discovery functions of the network management device 20.

Next, execution of a necessary module or a desired module of the virtual device module 81 and the function application module 82 is started, whereby
An additional function of the detected and located printing device is provided (step S1323). The print queue service module 83 is also notified to create a print queue related to the detected printing device, so that the print queue is inserted into the print queue 61 and an entry is created in the print queue setting directory ( Step S1324). In step S1308, the network management device 20 is announced to the network 10 as a print server together with the modified print queue 61 including the print queue corresponding to the detected printing device (step S1325).

Once the printing device has been located and the network management device 20 has been properly configured to manage the request for service from that printing device, the network management device 20 will request such a request for service. Can be processed. In step S1326, it is determined whether the network management apparatus 20 has received a print job directed to a printing apparatus having a print queue corresponding to the print queue 61 from one of the network apparatuses on the network 10 such as the workstation 12. To do.
If so, the print job is step S1327.
Is guided to an appropriate one of the print queues 61. Then, the print job is finally transmitted from the print queue to the corresponding printing device according to the rules and policies of the print queue (step S13).
28). If it is determined in step S1326 that the print job has not been received, the flow directly proceeds to step S1329. In step S1329, it is determined whether a request for the network setting web page 86 has been received from the network user for accessing and managing the network management apparatus 20 and all the printing apparatuses managed by the network management apparatus 20.
If the request has been received, the network configuration web page 86 based on the entry in the device management directory 70.
Is updated and transmitted to the workstation of the network user such as the system administrator (step S133).
0). Next, the network management device 20 responds to the management command provided by the network user via the network setting web page 86 (step S133).
1). Thereafter, the flow proceeds to step S1332 and returns. If in step S1329 it is determined that the request for network configuration web page 86 has not been received, flow directly proceeds to step S1332 and returns.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram for explaining a network environment in which two network management devices are connected to the network. As described above with reference to FIG. 1, the network environment is network 10.
, Workstations 11 and 12, laptop 19, server 14, printers 15, 16, 17 and 18, and network management device 20. Further, a second network management device 35 is also connected to the network 10. Both the network management device 20 and the second network management device 35 operate generally as described above with respect to FIGS. In a network environment such as that shown in FIG. 14, two network management devices must confirm their presence in the network in order to avoid confusion and redundancy with respect to discovery and management of printing devices on the network 10.

In this regard, each network management device can detect the presence of the other network management device using one of two methods. First, the network administrator may manually enter the IP address of the other network management device on the front panel of each network management device or via the workstation user interface. Alternatively, each network management device may periodically send out an advertisement message to announce its presence in the network to other network devices. The announcement message is preferably a multicast message containing the name of the network management device and the IP address, MAC address, version, service manager status, directory status, and number of devices found for the network management device. The multicast message includes the time when the network management device entered the service state and the resource availability indicator (resource a
vailability indicator) may be further included.
Therefore, one of the network management device 20 and the network management device 35 can be designated as the master device, and the other can be designated as the slave device. The master device can determine which of the two network management devices should support some services for the printing devices of network 10 based on a set of policies and rules. For example, when the network management device 20 is designated as the master device, the network management device 20 should execute only the discovery service related to the network 10, and the network management device 35 executes only the print queue service related to the network 10. You should be able to determine that it should.
In this way, the discovery and management of printing devices on the network 10 are efficiently distributed between the two network management devices, and network confusion and redundancy are reduced.

In FIG. 15, the printing device is separated from the network 10 by being divided into two groups, and each group is connected to the second network port of the corresponding network management device. 14 illustrates an embodiment of a network similar to the embodiment of FIG. As described above, the network management device 20 has the network interface 44 and the network interface 45 so as to be able to connect to two separate networks at once. Therefore, each printer group in FIG. 15 is connected to the second network port of the corresponding network management device by the isolated local network. In this example, since the printer is not visible to the network 10, the DHCP server of each network management device must actively respond to the IP address request of the printing device on the local network of the corresponding network management device. I won't. The DHCP server of each network management device can use the local IP address of the printer in its local network, thus saving valuable IP address to be used in the network 10. In the network environment of FIG. 15, the users of the network 10 are prevented from directly accessing the printer, and when using the printer, they have to pass through the respective network management devices. This can reduce network security and policy issues.

Each network management device of FIG. 15 operates as previously described with respect to FIGS. Furthermore, the master / slave designation described above with reference to FIG. 14 is relevant to the network management device of FIG. 15 only for purposes of discovery and print queues on the network 10. With respect to the local network of each network management device, it supports both local network discovery service and print queue management service since the corresponding network management device is the only device visible to the group of printers in that local network.

Therefore, when a user of the workstation 11 on the network 10 submits a print job to one of the printers, such as the printer 16, the print job is directed to the print server of the network management device 20. After that, the print job is inserted into an appropriate print queue managed by the network management device 20, and is sent from the print queue to the corresponding printer via the local network of the network management device 20.

In FIG. 16, both the network management device 20 and the network management device 35 are connected to one local network through the second network interface port, and all printers are resident in the one local network. Figure 1 except that
5 shows a network environment similar to 5. Thus, the master / slave relationship between two network management devices for managing services associated with network 10 is also used when managing services associated with a single shared local network in which the printer resides. . The allocation of services between two network management devices of network 10 is 2 in a shared local network.
The allocation of services between two network management devices may be different.

In this regard, FIG. 17 is a block diagram for explaining the master / slave relationship of a plurality of network management devices in a distributed network environment and the allocation of services for each network segment (subnet) in the network environment. . Referring to FIG. 17, the distributed network environment includes network management devices 20 (nmd1), 141 (nmd2) and 142.
It can be seen that (nmd3) is composed of the network 10 (subnet 1) that is the corporate backbone in which the company resides. The network environment further includes a subnet 2 which is a shared local network shared by the network management devices 20 and 141, and a subnet 3 which is a local network of the network management device 142.
Subnet 4 is a physically separated network segment representing a satellite office network connected to network 10 by a router. The network management devices 144 (nmd5) and 145 (nmd4) are resident in the subnet 4, and the network management device 145 is connected to the subnet 5 by its second network interface.

Considering FIG. 17, some of the network management devices are connected to the subnet shared with other network management devices via the first network interface, and the second network management device is connected to the second network management device. Those connected via a network interface to a subnet shared with another network management device, and further, a second
It can be seen that some are connected to a subnet that is not shared with any other network management device via the network interface of. Therefore, the services associated with each of the subnets to which a particular network management device is connected are assigned differently.

For example, in the service of the subnet 2, the network management device 20 is the discovery manager (service A manager) and the network management device 1
41 is the print queue service manager (service B
Manager). Further, the network management device 20 manages the local service directory of the subnet 2 as described above with reference to FIG. Further, the backup copy of the local service directory is managed by the network management device 141 in preparation for failure recovery when the network management device 20 fails. Further, it can be seen that the network management device 141 is designated as the master device of the subnet 2 and the service allocation of the subnet 2 can be reallocated based on the change of the subnet 2 or the allocation policy.

Since the network management device 142 is the only network management device of the subnet 3, it is a service manager for all services of the subnet 3, manages the local service directory of the subnet 3, and is a master device of the subnet 3. Although three network management devices are resident in the subnet 1 (network 10), the network management device 141
Is not directly responsible for the subnet 1 and manages the global service directory of the entire network environment of FIG. The network management device 141 acquires a copy of the local service directory for all other subnets in order to manage the global service directory.

The network management device 20 is the subnet 1
And manages the local service directory of subnet 1. Network management device 142
Has the task of managing both subnet 1 discovery and print queue services. Since the network management device 144 operates as the only network management device of the subnet 4, it manages both discovery and print queue services of the subnet 4, manages the local service directory of the subnet 4, and is a master device of the subnet 4. . Network management device 1
Reference numeral 44 manages the backup global service directory in case the network management device 141 fails. Like network management device 144, network management device 145 is the only network management device for subnet 5, and thus manages both subnet 5 discovery and print queue services, and manages the subnet 5 local service directory. It is also the master device of subnet 5.

The local service directory for each subnet is an effective means for each network management device of a subnet to know which network management device supports a particular service of that subnet. Similarly, the Global Services Directory is an effective means for all network management devices on a subnet to know which network management device supports a particular service on a particular subnet.

FIG. 18 is a block diagram showing, in the form of a table, the allocation of services and directories described above regarding the network management apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. 18 shows the status of services and allocation for each subnet to which each network management device is connected.

FIG. 19 is a block diagram for explaining the function of the print queue service manager 85 that allocates a balance between the network management device 20 and the network management device 35 to support the print queue. As shown in FIG. 19, the print queue service manager 85 includes a policy agent 152, a load balancer 154, and a data collector 155. Policy agent 152 obtains policy rules for assigning print queue services from global policy agent 151, which is preferably accessed by a network management device that manages a global services directory. The load balancer 154 detects an external event 150, such as the addition of a new printer to the network, and queries the policy agent 152 to determine if print queue service reassignment is necessary. This determination is loaded from a data collector 155 that collects statistical data regarding services performed on each of the network management device 20 and the network management device 35, such as from the discovery modules 84 and 158 and the print queue service modules 83 and 158. It is also based on the input to balancer 154.

The performance monitors 156 and 157 of the network management device 20 and the network management device 35 respectively monitor the performance of the above-mentioned discovery module and print queue service module. The performance monitor is accessed and controlled by the load balancer 154. In response to external events 150, monitored network management device services, historical service statistics and policy agent 152, load balancer 154
Is the network management device 20 and the network management device 3
5, it is determined whether or not the print queue service should be reassigned. If reassignment is required, the load balancer 154 directs it to the network management device's discovery module and print queue service module.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart for explaining the initialization boot-up procedure of the network management device 20 according to the present invention. In step S2001, the boot-up process is started when the network management device 20 is started or in response to a user command. Next, the flow proceeds to step S2002, and the network management device 2
A series of steps is initiated for each of the two zero network ports. In step S2003, the network management device 20 is connected to the network segment (subnet) at the current network port.
Determine if the network is currently enabled. If in step S2003 it is determined that the network is not currently enabled, flow returns to step S2002 to check the next network port if any network ports remain.

On the other hand, if the network is currently enabled, the flow proceeds to step S2004, in which the network management device 20 multicasts over the current network in order to find another network management device on the current network. Send a notice.
Next, a multicast inquiry for the global service directory is transmitted via the current network (step S2005). In step S2006,
It is determined whether the global service directory (GSD) has been found, and if found, the flow proceeds to step S2007, sets the GSD flag to "ON", and then the flow proceeds to step S2008. In step S2006, the global service directory (G
If it is determined that SD) has not been found, the flow goes directly to step S2008.

In step S2008, a multicast inquiry is sent over the current network for the local service network. Step S2009
Then, it is determined whether or not the local service network has been found. If not found, the flow proceeds to step S2010, after creating the local service directory, the flow proceeds to step S2011. If the local service directory is found in step S2009, the flow proceeds directly to step S2011. In step S2011, the network management device 2
Add the services supported by 0 to the local services directory. Next, in step S2012,
Note how many services are registered in the local service directory for the network management device 20. In step S2013, it is determined whether all the network ports of the network management device 20 have been covered. If there is an unprocessed network port, the flow proceeds to step S2003, and step S20.
The next network port is processed from 02 through S2012. If all network ports have been processed, flow proceeds to step S2014.

In step S2014, by checking the GSD flag, it is determined whether or not the global service directory found by any of the network ports exists. If the global service directory is not found, the global service directory is created in the network having the most services of the two networks of the network management device 20 (step S2015). It will be appreciated that other criteria can be used to determine which subnet should have the global services directory. For example, the level (number of subnet hops) to remove from other network management devices through the network
Can also be a determining factor. If the global service directory is found, the network management device 20
And the global service executed by the network management device 20 are entered in the global service directory (step S2016). Then, in step S2017, the process for determining the master device is started in parallel. Therefore, the flow is step S2018.
Then, the multicast advertisement is transmitted via all the network ports of the network management device 20. In step S2019, it is determined whether the discovery request has been received, and if it has been received, the flow returns to step S2018. If not received, the flow proceeds to step S2020, where the network management device 2
It is determined whether 0 should be cut off. If it should be blocked, the flow proceeds to step S2021, and the network management device 20 goes to blocking. Otherwise, the flow proceeds to step S2022 to enter the standby state, after which the flow returns to step S2018.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart for explaining how a master device is determined according to the present invention, starting from step S2017. Step S
At 2101, processing is started for a specific one of the enabled networks of the network management device 20. In step S2102, the local service directory is queried to determine the master network management device. In step S2103, it is determined whether or not the master network management device has been found. If found, the flow proceeds to step S2101,
Start processing for the other enabled network. If it is determined in step S2103 that the master network management device has not been found, the flow proceeds to step S2104 and the master network management device is created. Next, each network management device of the current network is inquired for a list of services supported by the network management device (step S2105).

For each service, it is judged which network management device executes the corresponding service manager, and then the service manager is started by that network management device (step S2106). Step S2
At 107, it is determined whether the network management apparatus 20 has covered all enabled networks. If networks remain, then steps S2101 through S2 for the next enabled network.
Repeat 107. If it has covered all enabled networks, flow proceeds to step S2108.
Proceed to and start processing of the service manager.

FIG. 22 is a flow chart for managing the local service directory. Step S2
At 201, processing of the local service directory begins. In step S2202, processing of the next entry in the local service directory is started. In step S2203, it is determined whether or not the lease period has elapsed for the entry in the local service directory. If the lease period has not elapsed, the process returns to step S2202 to process the next entry. If the lease period has expired, flow proceeds to step S2204 to remove the expired entry from the local services directory. In step S2205, it is determined whether all the entries in the local service directory have been examined. If the inspection is not completed yet, the flow returns to step S2202,
Inspect the next entry. If all entries have been examined, then flow returns to step S2202,
After a predetermined time, the examination of the entry is started again.

FIG. 23 is a flow chart for explaining the service management operation starting from the process of step S2108. In step S2301, wait time is waited for an instruction from the master network management device or the service manager. In step S2302, it is determined whether the network management device is a service manager, and if it is not a service manager, step S2302.
At 2303, the service operation is executed. If it is a service manager, flow proceeds to step S2304,
Start the service manager. In step S2305, the service functionality is published to the local service directory. Similarly, in step S2306, the global functionality is published to the global service directory. In step S2307, the service manager load balancer allocates resources to the network management device. In step S2308, the operation of the service manager is started.

In step S2309, it is determined whether or not the number of network management devices found is changed, and if there is a change, the flow proceeds to step S2313.
If there is no change, the flow proceeds to step S2310. In step S2310, it is determined whether the network management resource has been changed, and if there is a change, the flow proceeds to step S2313. If there is no change, the flow proceeds to step S2311. In step S2311, it is determined whether the performance data suggests a new resource setting, and if so, the flow proceeds to step S2313.
Go to. If not, the flow is step S2.
Proceed to 312. In step S2312, it is determined whether an external event has occurred, and if so, the flow proceeds to step S2313. If not, flow proceeds to step S2316.

In step S2313, the local policy and global policy regarding the resource allocation of the service manager are checked. Next, a new resource allocation is determined according to the local policy and the global policy (step S2314). Step S
At 2315, the service node in the network management device is updated according to the new resource allocation. Then the flow proceeds to step S2316 and determines whether the local service directory lease period for the service node has expired. If the lease period has elapsed, the flow proceeds to step S2317, the lease period is updated in the local service directory, and the flow proceeds to step S2318. If the lease period has not expired, flow proceeds directly to step S2318 to determine if the service node's global service directory lease period has expired. If the global service directory lease period has not expired, flow returns to step S2309. If the global service directory lease period has elapsed, step S231.
9, the lease period is updated, and the flow returns to step S2309, after which the service manager operation is repeated.

FIG. 24 is a flow chart for explaining the failure mode operation when the network management device fails. In step S2401, processing in the failure mode is started. After that, the process is executed in each local service directory (step S2402). In step S2403, the entry in the local service directory for which the lease period has elapsed is removed. Step S24
In 04, it is determined whether or not the entry relating to the failed network management device corresponds to the master network management device. If so, a new master network management device is created (step S2405), and the flow proceeds to step S2406. If not,
The flow advances to step S2406, it is determined whether or not the entry relating to the failed network management device corresponds to the backup service directory, and if it corresponds, a new backup service directory is created (step S2407), and the flow is Step S2408
Go to. If not, the flow is step S2.
In step S2409, the master network management device is notified if the entry related to the faulty network management device corresponds to the service manager, and if the entry corresponds to the service manager, the flow advances to step S2410. . If not, the flow goes directly to step S2410. Step S2410
Then, it is determined whether or not the entry relating to the failed network management device corresponds to the network management device service, and if it corresponds, all service managers are notified in step S2411, and then the flow returns to step S2403. And repeat the fault management process. If the entry for the failed network management device does not correspond to the network management device service, the flow proceeds directly to step S2403.

FIG. 25 is a flow chart for explaining the fault management process at the time of failure of the service directory starting at step S2501. Step S2502
, A request is made to access a particular service directory. In step S2503, it is determined whether the service directory is available. If it is available, the flow proceeds to step S2504 to continue the normal operation, and the flow returns to step S2502 to execute the fault management process. repeat. If, in step S2503, it is determined that the service directory is not available, flow proceeds to step S2505 to redirect the request for the service directory to the corresponding backup service directory. If the request successfully reaches the backup service directory, flow proceeds from step S2504 to step S2502, where the failure management process is repeated. If the backup service directory does not exist, the flow is step S2506.
Go to and create a backup service directory. Flow then returns to step S2502 to repeat the fault management process.

Based on the above description and the accompanying drawings, the present invention manages the initial settings and network settings of network devices in the entire network automatically and reduces undesired network traffic from the main network and network. Understand the efficient management of multiple network devices, such as network printers, throughout the network so that the network device can be physically isolated from the main network to prevent unauthorized access and use of the network device by users. it can. The present invention further provides a single focus user interface for network administrators to manage all network devices throughout the network.

The invention has been described by means of particular embodiments. It should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various changes and modifications can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the present invention. In particular, as mentioned above,
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention is not limited to network printers and can be used to manage various types of network devices.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a network environment in which the present invention can be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of an internal structure of a network management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of a directory structure in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of a configuration of a server according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of a software module configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a web page according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of a device management directory according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a print queue setting directory according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating the functionality of one embodiment of the present invention in a network environment.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing an example of a functional application module according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an example of a service directory according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing an example of a global service directory according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13A,

FIG. 13B]

FIG. 13C is a flowchart illustrating discovery of printing devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a network environment having a plurality of network management devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing a network environment having a plurality of network management devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a network environment having a plurality of network management devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 17A],

FIG. 17B is a block diagram illustrating use of a plurality of network management devices in a network environment according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 18A:

FIG. 18B is a block diagram illustrating use of a plurality of network management devices in a network environment according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating the use of a print queue service manager in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20A]

FIG. 20B is a flowchart illustrating an initial setting process of the network management device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart for explaining determination of the master network management device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a flowchart illustrating management of a local service directory according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 23A]

FIG. 23B is a flow chart illustrating the functionality of the service manager in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 24 is a flow chart illustrating a failure mode process in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 25 is a flow chart illustrating a failure mode process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Network, 11, 12 ... Workstation, 14 ... Server, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... Network printer, 19 ... Laptop, 20 ... Network management device, 21 ... Front panel, 26 ... Host processor, 29 ... User Interface, 30 ... Host processor, 31 ... Display device, 35 ... Network management device, 36, 37 ... Network printer, 40 ... Server bus, 41 ... CPU, 42 ... RAM, 44, 45 ... Network interface, 46 ... Front panel interface , 47 ... ROM, 50 ... Fixed disk, 51 ...
Operating system, 52 ... Front panel interface driver, 53 ... Network interface driver, 54 ... Directory, 55 ... Server, 56
… Software modules, 57… Web pages, 58
... print job, 59 ... print queue policy rule, 60 ... print driver, 61 ... print queue,
62 ... Other files, 141, 142, 144, 1
45 ... Network management device

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (71) Applicant 502172010             110 Innovation Drive,               Irvine, California               92612, U.S.S. S. A. (72) Inventor John Dee. Bernard             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Don Hideyas Matsubayashi             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Don Francis Purpra             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Ravi Chandran Lagunasan             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Steve Yasuhiro Mutoh             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Alison Bajo             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead (72) Inventor Richard A. Wilson             United States California             92612, Irvine, Innovation               Drive 110 Canon Development             Mento Americas, Inc.             In the dead F term (reference) 5B021 AA01 BB01 BB04 CC05 EE04                 5B089 GA11 GA13 GB03 HA06 HB00                       HB06 JA35 JB15 KA12 KA13                       KB04 KB06 ME02                 5K030 GA11 HA08 HB18 HC14 JT03                       KA05 LC09 MD10                 5K033 CB08 CB11 CC02 DA05 EC03

Claims (184)

[Claims] 1. A method for use in a network management device for managing a plurality of network devices on a network, the method comprising: transmitting from an address server via the network to one of the plurality of network devices; Detecting an address allocation message including an allocation address corresponding to a device, and responding to the detection of the address allocation message, an information request message including an allocation address corresponding to the network device from the network management device to the network. Through the network device, in response to the information request message, receiving information from the network, and in the device management directory corresponding to the network device and corresponding to the network device. Creating an entry that includes a destination address and information received from the network device. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of network devices are printers. 3. The address assignment message is DH
CP message, where the address server is DHCP
The method of claim 1, wherein the method is a server and the assigned address is an IP address. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the DHCP server is located at the network management device and performs detection of the address assignment message. 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the address assignment message is detected by a listening module located in the network management device. 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the address assignment message further includes a preset identification address corresponding to the printing device. 7. The information request message in the step of transmitting is transmitted only when the preset identification address of the address assignment message is within an identification address in a predetermined range. The method according to 6. 8. The preset identification address is a MAC address, and in the detecting step, the address assignment message is detected only when the MAC address is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses. The method of claim 6. 9. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of initiating execution of a virtual device module corresponding to the printing device and extending the functionality of the printing device. 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of initiating execution of a functional application module that interconnects with the virtual device module to utilize the expanded functionality of the network device. . 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional application module is a print job billing application module. 12. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional application module is a print job policy management application module. 13. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional application module is a printing device management application module. 14. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional application module is a printing device driver utility. 15. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional application module is a secure print job application module. 16. The method of claim 1, further comprising advertising the presence of the network management device to a plurality of workstations on the network. 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the network management device is published as a print server for each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 18. The method further comprises: creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory; and publishing each print queue to a plurality of workstations on the network. The method of claim 2 characterized. 19. Receiving a print job directed to one of said print queues from one of said workstations, submitting said print job to said corresponding print queue, and from said print queue. The method of claim 18, further comprising: sending the print job to a printing device corresponding to the print queue. 20. The network management device includes a web server that provides a network configuration web page to be accessed by at least one workstation connected to the network management device, the network configuration web page comprising: The method of claim 1 including a network management device and a user interface for managing each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 21. The method of claim 1, wherein the network management device includes a user interface panel for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 22. The printing device management application module displays a user interface display for managing each printing device having an entry in the network device and the device management directory in a workstation connected to the network management device. 14. The method of claim 13 supporting. 23. The network is a local network, and the network management device has a first interface card for connecting the network management device to the plurality of network devices via the local network, and the network. The method of claim 1, comprising a second interface card connecting the management device to the main network. 24. At least one network server and at least one network computing device are connected to the main network, and the network server and the network computing device are connected to the plurality of network devices only via the network management device. 24. The method of claim 23, wherein communication is possible. 25. The address assignment message is D
24. The HCP message, wherein the address server is a DHCP server provided in the network management device, and the assigned address is a local IP address that should be used only in the local network. the method of. 26. The plurality of network devices are network printers, a process of creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory, and a plurality of workstations on the main network. The method of claim 23, further comprising publishing a print queue. 27. Receiving a print job directed to one of the identified print queues of the print queues from one of the workstations via the main network; and the print job is identified. The method further comprising: submitting to a print queue, and sending the print job from the identified print queue to a printing device associated with the identified print queue via the local network. Item 26. The method according to Item 26. 28. A second network management device having said first and second interface cards is connected to said plurality of network devices on said local network via said first interface card, and said second network management device. 24. Connected to the main network via an interface card according to claim 23.
The method described in. 29. At least one additional network management device having the first and second interface cards is connected to a second plurality of network devices on a second local network via the first interface card. 24. The method of claim 23, wherein the method is configured and connected to the main network via the second interface card. 30. Each network management device sends an advertisement message via the main network to be detected by the other network management device, whereby each network management device is in the presence of the other network management device. 30. The method according to claim 29, characterized in that 31. One of the network management devices is designated as a master network management device and at least one other network management device is designated as a slave network management device.
The method described in 0. 32. The master network management device obtains a copy of the device management directory from the slave network management device.
The method according to 1. 33. Only the master network management device has a user interface for managing all network devices having entries in the device management directories corresponding to the master network management device, the slave network management device and each network management device. 33. The method of claim 32, supporting. 34. Each network management device on the network obtains information and manages all network devices having an entry in the corresponding device management directory of that particular network management device and all network management devices. 33. The method of claim 32, which supports a user interface of: 35. The master network management device creates a combined device management directory including entries from the device management directory of the master network management device and the device management directory of the slave network management device. The method described in. 36. The method of claim 35, wherein the master network management device sends a backup copy of the combined device management directory to the slave network management device. 37. The method of claim 36, wherein if the master network management device fails, the slave network management device is redesignated as a master network management device. 38. The network management device creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to a predetermined part of the plurality of printing devices, and the second network management device is configured to manage the plurality of print queues. 29. The method of claim 28, wherein a plurality of print queues corresponding to the remaining printing devices among the printing devices of the above are created and managed. 39. The predetermined printing device is determined based on a resource availability indicator of each network management device.
The method described in. 40. The network management device disables the function of the second network management device sending the address allocation message to the second network management device via the main network to detect the address allocation message. 29. Commanding.
The method described in. 41. A plurality of network management devices are connected to the main network through a first interface card of each network management device, each network management device being another network device on a separate local network. 24 is connected to the device via a second interface card.
The method described in. 42. One designated network management device of the plurality of network management devices is connected to each of the other network management devices from each of the other network management devices. 42. The method of claim 41, comprising collecting information about a set of functional services supported by each network management device. 43. The method of claim 42, wherein the designated network management device creates a global functional services directory based on the collected information. 44. The master network management device collects from the slave network management device information regarding a set of functional services supported by the slave network management device for each of the plurality of networks. The method according to 31. 45. The master network management device,
A local functional service directory is generated based on information collected from the slave network management device and information on a set of functional services supported by the master network management device for each of the plurality of network devices. The method of claim 44. 46. A method for use in a network management device for managing a plurality of network printers on a network, wherein a MAC corresponding to the network printer from one of the plurality of network printers.
Receiving an address request message including an address; and an address assignment message including a MAC address and an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer from the address server in the network management device via the network. To the discovery module of the network management device, the step of sending the IP address of the network printer to the discovery module of the network management device,
Determining whether the AC address is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses, and if the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses, the assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer Sending an information request message including the following from the discovery module to the network printer via the network, and responding to the information request message if the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses. And receiving information from the network printer, and if the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses, the device management directory corresponds to the network printer, Assign include IP address, and the method characterized by comprising the step of creating an entry containing the information received from the network printer corresponding to the AC address and the network printer. 47. A network management device for managing a plurality of network devices on a network, comprising:
Detecting an address assignment message transmitted from the address server via the network to one of the plurality of network devices and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device; and (b) responding to the detection of the address assignment message. And transmitting an information request message including an assigned address corresponding to the network device from the network management device to the network device via the network,
(C) receiving information from the network in response to the information request message, and (d) an assigned address corresponding to the network device in the device management directory and corresponding to the network device, and from the network device. A network management device comprising a program memory storing process steps for performing an entry including received information. 48. The network management device according to claim 47, wherein the plurality of network devices are printers. 49. The address assignment message is D
HCP message, and the address server is a DHC
The network management device according to claim 47, wherein the network management device is a P server and the assigned address is an IP address. 50. The network management device according to claim 49, wherein the DHCP server is arranged in the network management device and performs detection of the address allocation message. 51. The network management device according to claim 47, wherein the address assignment message is detected by a listening module arranged in the network management device. 52. The address assignment message comprises:
The network management device of claim 47, further comprising a preset identification address corresponding to the printing device. 53. In the transmitting step, the information request message is transmitted only when the preset identification address of the address assignment message is within an identification address in a predetermined range. 52. A network management device according to item 52. 54. The preset identification address is MAC
53. The network management device according to claim 52, which is an address, and in the detecting step, the address allocation message is detected only when the MAC address is included in a MAC address in a predetermined range. 55. The network management device according to claim 48, wherein the process step further comprises a step of starting execution of a virtual device module corresponding to the printing device and expanding the function of the printing device. . 56. The process step of claim 55, further comprising the step of initiating execution of a functional application module interconnecting with the virtual device module to utilize the expanded functionality of the network device. The network management device described in. 57. The network management device according to claim 56, wherein the functional application module is a print job accounting application module. 58. The network management device according to claim 56, wherein the functional application module is a print job policy management application module. 59. The network management device according to claim 56, wherein the functional application module is a printing device management application module. 60. The network management device of claim 56, wherein the functional application module is a printing device driver utility. 61. The network management device according to claim 56, wherein the functional application module is a confidential print job application module. 62. The network management device of claim 47, wherein the process step further comprises the step of advertising the presence of the network management device to a plurality of workstations on the network. 63. The network management device according to claim 62, wherein the network management device is published as a print server for each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 64. The process steps include: creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory; and publishing each print queue to a plurality of workstations on the network. 5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising:
8. The network management device according to item 8. 65. Receiving a print job directed to one of the print queues from one of the workstations; submitting the print job to the corresponding print queue; 65. The network management device of claim 64, wherein the process step further comprises: sending the print job to a printing device corresponding to the print queue. 66. The network management device includes a web server that provides a network configuration web page to be accessed by at least one workstation connected to the network management device, the network configuration web page comprising: The network management device according to claim 47, further comprising user information for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 67. The network management device according to claim 47, wherein the network management device includes a user interface panel for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. apparatus. 68. The printing device management application module displays a user interface display for managing the network device and each printing device having an entry in the device management directory in a workstation connected to the network management device. The network management device according to claim 59, which supports. 69. The network is a local network, the network management device has a first interface card for connecting the network management device to the plurality of network devices via the local network, and the network. The network management device according to claim 47, further comprising a second interface card for connecting the management device to the main network. 70. At least one network server and at least one network computing device are connected to the main network, and the network server and the network computing device are connected to the plurality of network devices only via the network management device. 70. The network management device according to claim 69, which is capable of communication. 71. The address assignment message is D
70. The HCP message, wherein the address server is a DHCP server provided in the network management device, and the assigned address is a local IP address that should be used only in the local network. Network management device. 72. The plurality of network devices are network printers, a process of creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory, and a plurality of workstations on the main network. 70. The network management device of claim 69, wherein the process steps further comprise publishing a print queue. 73. Receiving a print job directed to one of the identified print queues of the print queues from one of the workstations via the main network; and the print jobs are identified. The process steps further comprising: submitting to a print queue; and sending the print job from the identified print queue to a printing device associated with the identified print queue via the local network. 73. The network management device according to claim 72. 74. A second network management device having said first and second interface cards is connected to said plurality of network devices on said local network via said first interface card, and said second network management device. 69. Connected to the main network via an interface card according to claim 69.
The network management device described in. 75. At least one additional network management device having the first and second interface cards is connected to a second plurality of network devices on a second local network via the first interface card. 70. The network management device according to claim 69, wherein the network management device is connected to the main network via the second interface card. 76. Each network management device sends an advertisement message via the main network to be detected by the other network management device, whereby each network management device is in the presence of the other network management device. 76. The network management device according to claim 75, wherein 77. One of the network management devices is designated as a master network management device and at least one other network management device is designated as a slave network management device.
6. The network management device according to item 6. 78. The master network management device obtains a copy of the device management directory from the slave network management device.
7. The network management device described in 7. 79. Only the master network management device has a user interface for managing all network devices having entries in the device management directories corresponding to the master network management device, the slave network management device and each network management device. 79. The network management device according to claim 78, which supports. 80. Each network management device on the network obtains information and manages all network devices having an entry in the corresponding device management directory of that particular network management device and all network management devices. 79. The network management device according to claim 78, which supports the user interface of. 81. The master network management device creates a combined device management directory including entries from a device management directory of the master network management device and a device management directory of the slave network management device. The network management device described in. 82. The network management device according to claim 81, wherein the master network management device transmits a backup copy of the combined device management directory to the slave network management device. 83. The network management device according to claim 82, wherein when the master network management device fails, the slave network management device is re-designated as a master network management device. 84. The network management device creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to a predetermined part of the plurality of printing devices, and the second network management device is configured to manage the plurality of print queues. 75. The network management device according to claim 74, wherein a plurality of print queues corresponding to the remaining printing devices among the printing devices of [1] are created and managed. 85. The predetermined printing device is determined based on a resource availability indicator of each network management device.
The network management device described in. 86. The network management device disables the function of the second network management device sending the address allocation message to the second network management device via the main network to detect the address allocation message. 75. An instruction is provided.
The network management device described in. 87. A plurality of network management devices are connected to the main network through a first interface card of each network management device, each network management device being another network device on a separate local network. 69. The second interface card is connected to the.
The network management device described in. 88. A designated one network management device of the plurality of network management devices is connected to each of the other plurality of network devices from each of the other network management devices. 88. The network management device according to claim 87, wherein information about a set of functional services supported by each network management device is collected. 89. The network management device according to claim 88, wherein the designated network management device generates a global function service directory based on the collected information. 90. The master network management device collects, from the slave network management device, information on a set of functional services supported by the slave network management device for each of the plurality of networks. 77. A network management device according to item 77. 91. The master network management device comprises:
A local functional service directory is generated based on information collected from the slave network management device and information on a set of functional services supported by the master network management device for each of the plurality of network devices. The network management device according to claim 90. 92. Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable storage medium for managing a plurality of network devices on a network by a network management device, the process steps comprising: A detecting step of detecting an address assignment message transmitted to one of the network devices and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device; and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device in response to the detection of the address assignment message. A transmitting step of transmitting an information request message from the network management apparatus to the network apparatus via the network; a receiving step of receiving information from the network in response to the information request message; Creating an entry in the directory corresponding to the network device and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device and information received from the network device. 93. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, wherein the plurality of network devices are network printers. 94. The address assignment message is D
HCP message, and the address server is a DHC
93. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, which is a P-server and the assigned address is an IP address. 95. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 94, wherein said DHCP server is located at said network management device and performs detection of said address assignment message. 96. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, wherein the address assignment message is detected by a listening module located in the network management device. 97. The address assignment message comprises:
93. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, further comprising a preset identification address corresponding to the printing device. 98. In the transmitting step, the information request message is transmitted only when the preset identification address of the address allocation message is within an identification address in a predetermined range. 97. Computer-executable process steps according to 97. 99. The preset identification address is MAC
98. The computer-executable process of claim 97, which is an address, and wherein in the detecting step, the address assignment message is detected only if the MAC address falls within a range of MAC addresses. Step. 100. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 93, further comprising the step of initiating execution of a virtual device module corresponding to the printing device and extending the functionality of the printing device. 101. The computer of claim 100, further comprising the step of initiating execution of a functional application module that interconnects with the virtual device module to utilize the expanded functionality of the network device. Executable process steps. 102. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 101, wherein the functional application module is a print job billing application module. 103. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 101, wherein the functional application module is a print job policy management application module. 104. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 101, wherein the functional application module is a printing device management application module. 105. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 101, wherein the functional application module is a printing device driver utility. 106. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 101, wherein the functional application module is a confidential print job application module. 107. The method according to claim 9, further comprising the step of publicizing the existence of the network management device to a plurality of workstations on the network.
Computer-executable process steps according to 2. 108. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 107, wherein said network management device is published as a print server for each network device having an entry in said device management directory. 109. The method further comprises: creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory; and publishing each print queue to a plurality of workstations on the network. 94. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 93. 110. Receiving a print job directed to one of the print queues from one of the workstations; submitting the print job to the corresponding print queue; 110. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 109, further comprising: sending the print job to a printing device corresponding to the print queue. 111. The network management device includes a web server that provides a network configuration web page to be accessed by at least one workstation connected to the network management device,
93. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, wherein the network configuration web page includes user information for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 112. The computer-implemented claim 92, wherein the network management device includes a user interface panel for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. Possible process steps. 113. The printing device management application module displays a user interface display for managing each printing device having an entry in the network device and the device management directory in a workstation connected to the network management device. 105. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 104, which support. 114. The network is a local network, the network management device has a first interface card for connecting the network management device to the plurality of network devices via the local network, and the network. 93. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 92, comprising a second interface card connecting the management device to the main network. 115. At least one network server and at least one network computing device are connected to the main network, and the network server and the network computing device are connected to the plurality of network devices only via the network management device. 115. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 114, capable of communicating. 116. The address allocation message is a DHCP message, the address server is a DHCP server provided in the network management device, and the allocation address is a local IP address to be used only in the local network. 115. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 114. 117. The plurality of network devices are network printers, a process of creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory, and a plurality of workstations on the main network. 115. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 114, further comprising: publishing a print queue. 118. Receiving a print job directed to one of the identified print queues from one of the workstations via the main network, the print job being identified. The method further comprising: submitting to a print queue, and sending the print job from the identified print queue to a printing device associated with the identified print queue via the local network. The computer-executable process step of paragraph 117. 119. A second network management device having the first and second interface cards is connected to the plurality of network devices on the local network through the first interface card, and the second network management device is connected to the plurality of network devices on the local network. 2. The main network is connected via an interface card of 1.
15. Computer-executable process steps according to 14. 120. At least one additional network management device having said first and second interface cards is connected to a second plurality of network devices on a second local network via said first interface card. 115. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 114, wherein the computer-executable process steps are connected to the main network via the second interface card. 121. Each network management device sends an advertisement message via the main network to be detected by the other network management device, whereby each network management device is in the presence of the other network management device. 121. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 120, characterized in that 122. The computer of claim 121, wherein one of the network management devices is designated as a master network management device and at least one other network management device is designated as a slave network management device. Executable process steps. 123. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 122, wherein the master network management device obtains a copy of the device management directory from the slave network management device. 124. Only the master network management device has a user interface for managing all network devices having entries in the device management directories corresponding to the master network management device, the slave network management device and each network management device. 124. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 123, characterized in that they support. 125. Each network management device on the network obtains information and manages all network devices having an entry in the corresponding device management directory of that particular network management device and all network management devices. 124. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 123, supporting the user interface of 126. The master network management device creates a combined device management directory including entries from a device management directory of the master network management device and a device management directory of the slave network management device. Computer-executable process steps described in. 127. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 126, wherein the master network management device sends a backup copy of the combined device management directory to the slave network management device. 128. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 127, wherein if the master network management device fails, the slave network management device is redesignated as a master network management device. 129. The network management device creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to a predetermined part of the plurality of printing devices and manages the second print queue.
120. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 119, wherein said network management device creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to the remaining printing devices of said plurality of printing devices. 130. The printing device according to claim 1,
The determination is based on a resource availability indicator of each network management device.
29. Computer-executable process steps according to 29. 131. The network management device disables the function of the second network management device sending the address allocation message to the second network management device via the main network to detect the address allocation message. An instruction is issued according to claim 1.
19. Computer-executable process steps according to 19. 132. A plurality of network management devices are connected to the main network via a first interface card of each network management device, each network management device being another network device on a separate local network. 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the first interface card and the second interface card are connected to each other.
15. Computer-executable process steps according to 14. 133. A designated one network management device of the plurality of network management devices is connected from each of the other network management devices to each of the plurality of other network devices connected to the corresponding network management device. 133. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 132, wherein information is collected about a set of functional services supported by each network management device. 134. Computer-executable process steps according to claim 133, wherein the designated network management device creates a global functional services directory based on the collected information. 135. The master network management device collects information from the slave network management device regarding a set of functional services supported by the slave network management device for each of the plurality of networks. 122. Computer-executable process steps according to 122. 136. The master network management device is based on information collected from the slave network management device and information on a set of functional services supported by the master network management device for each of the plurality of network devices. 14. The local function service directory is created.
5. Computer-executable process steps according to item 5. 137. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable process steps for managing a plurality of network devices on a network by a network management device, the computer-executable process steps comprising: A detecting step of detecting an address assignment message transmitted to one of the plurality of network devices via the network and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device; and the network in response to the detection of the address assignment message. A transmission step of transmitting an information request message including an assigned address corresponding to the device from the network management device to the network device via the network; and, in response to the information request message, transmitting the information request message to the network device. A receiving step of receiving information from the network; and a creating step of creating an entry in the device management directory corresponding to the network device and including an assigned address corresponding to the network device and information received from the network device. A computer-readable storage medium characterized by the above. 138. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, wherein the plurality of network devices are printers. 139. The address assignment message is a DHCP message and the address server is DH.
138. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, which is a CP server and the assigned address is an IP address. 140. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 139, wherein the DHCP server is located in the network management device and performs detection of the address assignment message. 141. The address assignment message may be detected by a listening module located in the network management device.
The computer-readable storage medium according to. 142. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, wherein the address assignment message further includes a preset identification address corresponding to the printing device. 143. In the step of transmitting, the information request message is transmitted only when the preset identification address of the address assignment message is included in an identification address in a predetermined range. 142. A computer-readable storage medium according to 142. 144. The preset identification address is MA
143. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 142, which is a C address, and wherein in the detecting step, the address assignment message is detected only when the MAC address is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses. . 145. The computer readable storage of claim 138, wherein the process steps further comprise the step of initiating execution of a virtual device module corresponding to the printing device and extending the functionality of the printing device. Medium. 146. The process steps of claim 145, wherein the process steps further comprise the step of initiating execution of a functional application module that interconnects with the virtual device module to utilize the expanded functionality of the network device. The computer-readable storage medium according to. 147. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 146, wherein the functional application module is a print job billing application module. 148. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 146, wherein the functional application module is a print job policy management application module. 149. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 146, wherein the functional application module is a printing device management application module. 150. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 146, wherein the functional application module is a printing device driver utility. 151. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 146, wherein the functional application module is a confidential print job application module. 152. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, wherein the process steps further comprise the step of advertising the presence of the network management device to a plurality of workstations on the network. 153. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 152, wherein the network management device is published as a print server for each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 154. The process steps include: creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory; and publishing each print queue to a plurality of workstations on the network. 138. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 138, further comprising: 155. Receiving a print job directed to one of the print queues from one of the workstations; submitting the print job to the corresponding print queue; The computer-readable storage medium of claim 154, wherein the process steps further comprise: sending the print job to a printing device corresponding to the print queue. 156. The network management device includes a web server that provides a network configuration web page to be accessed by at least one workstation connected to the network management device,
138. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, wherein the network configuration web page includes user information for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. 157. The computer-readable device of claim 137, wherein the network management device includes a user interface panel for managing the network management device and each network device having an entry in the device management directory. Storage medium. 158. The printing device management application module displays a user interface display for managing the network device and each printing device having an entry in the device management directory in a workstation connected to the network management device. 149. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 149, which supports. 159. The network is a local network, and the network management device includes a first interface card for connecting the network management device to the plurality of network devices via the local network, and the network. 138. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 137, comprising a second interface card that connects the management device to the main network. 160. At least one network server and at least one network computing device are connected to the main network, and the network server and the network computing device are connected to the plurality of network devices only via the network management device. 160. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 159, which is capable of communication. 161. The address assignment message is a DHCP message, the address server is a DHCP server provided in the network management device, and the assigned address is a local IP address to be used only in the local network. 160. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 159, wherein 162. The plurality of network devices are network printers, a process of creating a print queue for each printing device having an entry in the device management directory, and a plurality of workstations on the main network. 160. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 159, wherein the process steps further comprise publishing a print queue. 163. Receiving a print job directed to one of the identified print queues of the print queues from one of the workstations via the main network; and the print jobs are identified. The process steps further comprising: submitting to a print queue; and sending the print job from the identified print queue to a printing device associated with the identified print queue via the local network. 16. The method according to claim 16,
The computer-readable storage medium according to 2. 164. A second network management device having the first and second interface cards is connected to the plurality of network devices on the local network via the first interface card, and the second network management device is connected. 2. The main network is connected via an interface card of 1.
59. A computer-readable storage medium according to 59. 165. At least one additional network management device comprising said first and second interface cards is connected to a second plurality of network devices on a second local network via said first interface card. 160. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 159, wherein the computer-readable storage medium is connected to the main network via the second interface card. 166. Each network management device sends an advertisement message via the main network to be detected by the other network management device, whereby each network management device is present with the other network management device. 166. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 165, which detects 167. The computer of claim 166, wherein one of the network management devices is designated as a master network management device and at least one other network management device is designated as a slave network management device. A readable storage medium. 168. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 167, wherein the master network management device obtains a copy of the device management directory from the slave network management device. 169. Only the master network management device has a user interface for managing the master network management device, the slave network management device, and all network devices having entries in a corresponding device management directory of each network management device. 169. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 168, which supports. 170. Each network management device on the network obtains information and manages all network devices having an entry in the corresponding device management directory of that particular network management device and all network management devices. 169. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 168, which supports the user interface of: 171. The master network management device creates a combined device management directory including entries from a device management directory of the master network management device and a device management directory of the slave network management device. The computer-readable storage medium according to. 172. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 171, wherein the master network management device sends a backup copy of the combined device management directory to the slave network management device. 173. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 172, wherein when the master network management device fails, the slave network management device is redesignated as a master network management device. 174. The network management device creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to a predetermined part of the plurality of printing devices and manages the second print queue.
165. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 164, wherein the network management device of claim 164 creates and manages a plurality of print queues corresponding to the remaining printing devices of the plurality of printing devices. 175. A printer according to claim 1, wherein:
The determination is based on a resource availability indicator of each network management device.
74. A computer-readable storage medium according to 74. 176. The network management device disables the function of the second network management device sending the address allocation message to the second network management device via the main network to detect the address allocation message. An instruction is issued according to claim 1.
64. A computer-readable storage medium according to 64. 177. A plurality of network management devices are connected to the main network via a first interface card of each network management device, each network management device being another network device on a separate local network. 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the first interface card and the second interface card are connected to each other.
59. A computer-readable storage medium according to 59. 178. A designated one network management device of the plurality of network management devices is connected from each of the other network management devices to each of the plurality of other network devices connected to the corresponding network management device. 178. The computer readable storage medium of claim 177, wherein information about a set of functional services supported by each network management device is collected. 179. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 178, wherein the designated network management device creates a global functional services directory based on the collected information. 180. The master network management device collects from the slave network management device information regarding a set of functional services supported by the slave network management device for each of the plurality of networks. 167. A computer-readable storage medium according to 167. 181. The master network management device is based on information collected from the slave network management device and information on a set of functional services supported by the master network management device for each of the plurality of network devices. 19. The local function service directory is created.
The computer-readable storage medium according to 0. 182. A network management device for managing a plurality of network printers on a network,
(A) receiving an address request message including a MAC address corresponding to the network printer from one of the plurality of network printers, and (b) an address server in the network management device via the network, Sending an address assignment message including a MAC address and an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer to the network printer; (c) notifying the discovery module of the network management device of the assigned IP address of the network printer And (d) determining in the discovery module whether the MAC address of the network printer is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses, and (e) the MAC address of the network printer. MA-less of the predetermined range
If the address is in the C address, sending an information request message including the assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer from the discovery module to the network printer via the network, and (f) the MAC address of the network printer. Is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses,
Receiving information from the network printer in response to the information request message, and (g) an MA whose MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range.
If it is in the C address, create an entry in the device management directory that corresponds to the network printer, includes the MAC address and the assigned IP address that corresponds to the network printer, and includes the information received from the network printer. A network management device comprising: a program memory that stores a process step that is executable to execute the process; and a processor that executes the process step stored in the program memory. 183. Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable storage medium for managing a plurality of network printers on a network by a network management device, the method comprising: A first receiving step of receiving an address request message including a MAC address corresponding to a network printer; a MAC address and an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer from an address server in the network management device via the network; A first transmission step of transmitting an address allocation message including the following to the network printer, and notifying the discovery module of the network management device of the IP address allocated to the network printer And a determination step of determining whether or not the MAC address of the network printer is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses in the discovery module, and the M of the network printer.
Second transmission for transmitting an information request message including an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer from the discovery module to the network printer via the network when an AC address is included in the predetermined range of MAC addresses A second receiving step of receiving information from the network printer in response to the information request message when the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses; If the MAC address is included in the predetermined range of MAC addresses, the device management directory includes the assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer, the MAC address and the network printer, and Serial computer-executable process steps, characterized in that it comprises a creation step of creating an entry containing the information received from the network printer. 184. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable process steps for managing a plurality of network printers on a network by a network management device, the computer-executable process steps comprising: A first receiving step of receiving an address request message including a MAC address corresponding to the network printer from one of the network printers, and an address server in the network management device via the network,
A first transmitting step of transmitting an address assignment message including a MAC address and an assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer to the network printer, and notifying the discovery module of the network management device of the assigned IP address of the network printer And a determining step of determining whether or not the MAC address of the network printer is within a predetermined range of MAC addresses in the discovery module, and the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses. If yes, the assignment I corresponding to the network printer
A second transmitting step of transmitting an information request message including a P address from the discovery module to the network printer via the network; and when the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses, A second receiving step of receiving information from the network printer in response to the information request message; and if the MAC address of the network printer is within the predetermined range of MAC addresses, the device management directory displays the network A creation step of creating an entry corresponding to the printer, including the MAC address and the assigned IP address corresponding to the network printer, and including the information received from the network printer. Over data-readable storage medium.